


O Come All Ye Doofish

by dollsome



Category: Angel: the Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 08:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas cheer meets Angel Investigations. Kinda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	O Come All Ye Doofish

Maybe it’s like a Christmas miracle or something.

Cordelia considers this. They’re all hanging out down in Angel’s cave of shadowy vamp pain. (She has _got_ to get some friends who think sun is a good thing, before she winds up as pale and pasty as Angel. Or – ohGodno – _Wesley_.) She’s stringing up some Christmas lights, because she has nobly accepted that it is her lot in life to bring joy and sunshine – well, figurative sunshine – into Angel’s mopey broody dullsville existence. The boys were supposed to be helping her, but instead, they’re riveted by the television. So riveted that Angel doesn’t even freak out when she ‘accidentally’ knocks a battle axe off the wall and replaces it with a nice tinselly wreath.

“I suspect this bit will resonate with you especially,” Wesley is saying in a low voice to Angel like it is really serious business going down before them, like they’re watching The Power of Myth instead of a dorky claymation Christmas movie. She doesn’t really get what The Power of Myth is, but Willow and Giles had a super enthusiastic chat about it once, and that is all Cordelia needs to know.

“You see,” Wesley continues hoity-toitily, “once the Abominable Snowman’s teeth have been removed by Hermey the Misfit Elf, he no longer wishes ill upon the world around him. Not only that, but his particular skills become essential to his new group of friends. Who else would have been tall enough to put that star on top of the tree, hmm?”

“Aw,” Angel says in this small, contented voice.

Cordelia glances at him.

He is totally smiling. Not in a way with teeth, or obviousness, but the corners of his mouth are definitely pointing north. Wesley is gazing so fondly at him that if it were anybody else, she’d be tempted to ask whether she needed to give them some alone time. She’s spent enough time around Wes, though, to get that there is no homoeroticism to his desperation. That right there is just pure, platonic, friendly Please Love Me ‘Cause No One Else Has buddydom.

It’s kinda sweet. It’s all kinda sweet.

Technically, Cordelia Chase doesn’t do sweet. What are these weirdos turning her into?

Whatever it is, she’s pretty sure it’s irreversible by this point.

“You doofus,” she says for old times’ sake, and tosses a tinfoil angel at Angel’s head. ‘Cause, ha ha, get it?

“What?” He picks it up and stares down at it with befuddlement. She wishes she had a camera, because nothing has ever screamed Company Christmas Card at her more than this moment.

“You are eating this up with a spoon! Or, okay, slurping it up with a bendy straw. The point is, you’re going all sappy over the Play-Doh adventures of Freak Nose over there.” She waves her hand at the TV.

“It’s a nice story,” Angel protests.

She snorts. “Yeah, if you’re _five_.”

“Just because _you_ haven’t the sensitivity required to appreciate such a poignant tale doesn’t mean you should attempt to emasculate those who do—”

“Uh, I said five, not five year old girl with pigtails and a Barbie doll. That emasculation thing was all you.”

“It was implied,” Wesley sniffs.

Cordelia rolls her eyes. “Can it, Hermey the Misfit Elf.”

Wesley gasps, affronted. God, he is the most fun person ever sometimes. “Beg pardon—”

“He says dentist, you say rogue demon hunter,” Cordelia says innocently.

“So you were paying attention too,” Angel surmises. His lips get all northward again.

“Pfft!” It’s kind of an answer. She sinks down onto the arm of Wesley’s chair. He makes a super British tut-tutting noise and pokes her in the side, but she’s pretty sure that’s just dork code for _oh Cordelia, what would my life be without you?_

“You know what,” she says nostalgically, “once upon a time, I actually thought the two of you were cool. I know, I know: what was wrong with me? How could I have been so misinformed? But it’s true. _You_ , Angel, you were all tall and handsome and mysterious and silent. Do you know how hot ‘silent’ can seem when you’re dating Xander Spastic Ramble Harris? I mean, your taste in the ladies left something to be desired, and that whole murder spree didn’t exactly bring on the warm and swoony feelings, but hey. Overall, not so bad. And _you_.” Wesley sits up straighter. Even his glasses are glinting with expectation. “You! The suits! The actual adulthood! The _accent_. It physically pains me to say it now – we are talking brain-breaking, vision-level pain here – but you, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, had it going on.”

Wesley smirks. “Well, I can’t quite say I’m surprised that you felt that way—”

“Or maybe,” she speculates, because come to think of it, this explanation makes a lot more sense, “you just looked really good next to Xander.”

The smirk falters.

“Point is,” she concludes grandly, “once upon a time, I would have totally sucked face with both of you. And now it’s like, _eesh_. Secret doofus alert. Live and learn, huh?”

They both stare at her like they just got beat up. She would know, considering how often she sees them get beat up.

Then Angel’s expression shifts. “Not to be the bearer of bad news, Cordelia—”

“Oh, please. When are you ever not, Captain Doom ‘N Gloom?”

“—but I’m pretty sure you’ve sucked face with both of us. Technically.”

“Some of us twice,” Wesley adds, looking way too smug.

“Hey! Wait a minute here!—”

“Is that enough,” he muses, “to indoctrinate you into our doofish ranks?”

“I’d say so,” Angel says.

Ugh.

“So I guess what it all comes down to,” Angel concludes, “is that the three of us are all a team of doofuses. Doofuses? Sounds funny.”

“Doofi,” Wesley suggests.

“Doofi,” Angel considers with an approving little nod.

“Yeah,” Cordelia says, “the fact that you’re discussing the potential plural of the word ‘doofus’? That right there is a little thing I like to call proof that _I_ am nowhere near joining your doofian ranks.”

“Doofian?” Wesley frowns. “I could’ve sworn I said ‘doofish.’”

“Doofian sounds way more impressive,” Cordelia says shortly.

Wesley smiles. So does Angel. He also reaches over and pats her on the arm, which she guesses is the repressed gloomy vampire version of a hug.

“I saw you knock down that battle axe, by the way,” he tells her. Wesley chuckles.

“Damn it!” Cordelia says.

 


End file.
